Touch-screen technology transforms Ventura County classrooms

First-grader Trevor Barton works with an iPad during class at La Mariposa Elementary School in Camarillo.

Ventura County Star

Third-grader Brittany Widerburg does math on an iPad during class at La Mariposa Elementary School in Camarillo.

Ventura County Star

First-grader Rachel Widofsky draws the letter “N” on an iPad during class at La Mariposa Elementary School in Camarillo.

Ventura County Star

Third-grade teacher Christina Culp uses an iPad to give a lesson during her class at La Mariposa Elementary School in Camarillo. The iPad also is linked to a board at the front of the classroom, giving Culp the ability to walk around to the students while teaching.

Ventura County Star

First-grader Tiana Stouch works with an iPad recently at La Mariposa Elementary School in Camarillo.

Ventura County Star

Santa came a month late to Foothill Technology High School in Ventura, where teachers and students got their hands on 67 iPads, retina and mini versions. He also visited La Mariposa Elementary School in Camarillo, delivering three dozen iPad 3s last fall.

In fact, schools across Ventura County have new digital toys that are transforming classrooms in surprising ways.

"Teachers are really excited because it's like they're reinventing teaching through this device," said Melissa Wantz, technology specialist for Foothill Technology.

At the Ventura high school this month, students in a social studies class used their iPad mini to make political cartoons about federal government agencies.

In a third-grade class at La Mariposa, pupils used an app to test their double-digit multiplication skills.

Kindergartners at a bilingual class at McKinna School used their fingers to trace the alphabet on their touch screens, which gave instant feedback when a letter was written in the wrong stroke order.

McKinna, an Oxnard school where more than 80 percent of students do not speak English, was recently recognized by Apple for its iRead program. The school began a literacy program in 2010 with two iPods. Today, with help from $484,000 in state grants received in a three-year period, the school has been able to buy iPods and iPads for all grade levels.

Anne Jenks, principal of McKinna, said students have to be prepared for an increasingly digitized world.

"If you're not proficient in technology — and not just knowledgeable, but proficient — I don't know where you will be working," Jenks said. "Even at McDonalds, the computers are advanced."

Eleanor Crilly, a McKinna kindergarten teacher, was using a group of fluttering butterflies on the iPad to teach arithmetic. Pupils were dragging the butterflies into a basket to solve an addition problem.

"You can only review so many times with flash cards and cubes," Crilly said. "We had a heck of a time with addition last year. We didn't do it until the end of the year. Now we're doing it in January."

Pupils spend 15 to 30 minutes with the devices every day. The kindergarten class will soon work on a stop-action film on the alphabet, with pupils reading the letters and making the phonetic sounds.

Jenks said the technology is one reason why the school met all its state and federal targets last year.

"This isn't about being cool; it's about helping students get the best in education," Jenks said. "They're digital natives, and this is what they relate to."

Technology is arriving in more classrooms and used in all grade levels. Touch-screen technology and voice recognition in smartphones are giving the youngest learners Internet access. Many toddlers who aren't literate can now tap and swipe their way through these devices.

"Until we had the touch screen, there was not a way for young students to understand the software program. They were struggling so much with a mouse, struggling with the keyboard. That automatically closed the door to their understanding," said Lisa Guernsey, author of "Screen Time: How Electronic Media — From Baby Videos to Educational Software — Affects Your Young Child." "Now technology has opened that door."

While new gadgets can be exciting, they must accompany teacher training, Guernsey said.

"There's a lot of attention getting these tablets, but we need just as much attention paid to the teachers who are making these choices and the types of apps they're using," Guernsey said. "There certainly can be a novelty effect when they get new technology in their hands. If you have that in isolation, when you don't have teachers who are properly trained, that novelty can fizzle."

At La Mariposa, first-grader Trésor Huyghe, 6, used an iPad app tested by Jamie Alvarez, a teacher on special assignment at the Pleasant Valley School District. Trésor was playing a hangman-style game, trying to spell a word correctly in time to protect the snack of a cartoon cat.

"You write the right word to stop the mouse from trying to get the cheese," Trésor said.

Trésor likes to skip ahead to the challenging words from grade 10 and 11, guessing how to spell words he has never heard of, such as "nonchalant" and "evanescent."

"I do know one word," he said with pride. "Accelerate."

When it comes to technology, students are often the experts.

"The teachers spend more time learning the technology than the students," said La Mariposa Principal Jay Greenlinger. "This is the world they live in. It's the world they'll work in."

At Foothill Technology, physiology teacher Mika Anderson, who was not familiar with Apple products when she received her iPad two weeks ago, acknowledged she didn't even know how to turn it on.

Anderson was a quick learner, spending nights researching apps before finding 3D Skeleton System Pro III, an app used by Stanford University medical students. With the teacher iPad synced to the classroom screen, Anderson can zoom into and out of the skeletal system, showing bones and muscles from all different angles.

"The difference between last year is this is more dynamic," Anderson said. "The students' understanding of the relationship between different bones is better. It's not just learning the anatomy but having an intricate understanding of physiology. And that's awesome."

But Anderson doesn't think the iPad will completely replace the textbook diagrams and skeletal model hanging in the back of the class.

"The iPad is one tool in my chest," she said. "If I overuse it, the kids are not going to be interested. I think there's something wrong when you're completely relying on technology."